What do you think
God sees when He looks at us? And what do you suppose is going through His
mind as He watches us?
When He sees our selfishness, our apathy, our bickering, our prejudice, our
pettiness…what is He feeling about us? Or when we have kindness, compassion
or faith…what must He be pondering? He created us, so He knows what
goes on with us, but we aren’t sure what He sees. When we do a selfish
act or pass along a pain, is He angry and condemning? Or just disappointed
because we should have known better. And if we rise up above ourselves and
do good to someone is He applauding us in our little victory?

Each
person has a different interpretation of what they think God sees. That is
because everyone projects onto God his or her own feelings of what He is thinking.
There is an assumption of how the Creator of the universe views us, our world
and what we do in it.

Many
psychologists have suggested that a person will project the personality of
their own father onto God. If their father was kind and gentle, then they
will assume that God is kind and gentle.
But if a father is mean, distant and disapproving…that person can view
God in just the same way.

Of
course, we’ve all heard from some pulpits and TV evangelists who say
that God is collecting all our mistakes and is ready to punish us with His
wrath and judgment when the time is right.

And
then we have Jesus, The New Covenant. The Lamb of God. Redeemer.
Jesus, who took the punishment of our sin onto Himself to reconcile us back
to God. And in the Gospels we see how the personality of Jesus came out during
His ministry.
His words and actions tell us exactly how He sees and how He thinks.
And how does He see? Jesus sees with eyes of compassion, with eyes of forgiveness
and with eyes of love.
And yes, Jesus did get angry, but He got angry at the self-righteous who didn’t
have compassion for the ordinary man and woman.
He was angry with those religious leaders who didn’t care for humanity
but cared only for their own “club”. Of course it didn’t
help that they were arrogant, self-centered, nitpickers who controlled everything
(so they thought). Their inability to see with the true Eyes of God prevented
them from seeing the Light of the World.

To
see through the Eyes of God is to see humanity as Christ sees humanity. With
unconditional love.

But
it takes more than the knowledge of Jesus’ life and teachings to see
with the Eyes of God. It requires the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit
is the One that speaks of the truths of God and reveals all truths to those
who live in the Spirit.

While
one person can see a worthless drug addicted bum on the street sucking up
the welfare system, Jesus sees a once promising intelligent young man who
fell on hard times and made the wrong choices.
A person, who perhaps has lost everything and now has no one and no reason
to continue on with his life.

Or
we can see a group of rioting protesters and think they are a bunch of uncontrollable
ignorant animals who should be incarcerated.
But Jesus sees people who are frustrated because their voices are being ignored
and their lives dismissed. All they want is to be recognized, treated with
respect, and included into the collective community.

When
we see the world…we look through our own selfish eyes and judge the
world according to how it will affect us…personally.

When
Jesus sees the world, His eyes transcend time and space.He
looks with eyes that see through our souls.

What does God see when He looks at us?
He sees how different people have helped and hurt us. He sees our disappointments,
our fear, our failures and how all these things have changed us in good and
bad ways. He also sees our desire to be something greater than ourselves;
at the same time He sees how we can be our worst enemy. He sees that we’re
doing the best we can, though He knows we could do better. He sees our wishes
for love and success, but sees that many of our dreams may never come true.
He also sees that we’re searching for answers, but don’t know
where to look.

Jesus
is the answer. But our blindness prevents us from seeing Him.
Even Christians, followers of Christ, may not be able to see with the Eyes
of God because WE are getting in the way.
Our problems, our selfishness, our earthly vanities, our anxieties, our prejudices,
our lack of trust…are all like a closed curtain on a window.
They prevent us from seeing what the Holy Spirit would have us see.
But the truth is…perhaps we really don’t want to see all God wants
us to see, because we are afraid to see the truth. We really know that if
we could see the truths of God…then we would have to act on those truths,
and many of us are actually not quite ready for that yet.

In
order to see with the Eyes of God, we first have to see God.

And
when we understand how God sees us, we can look at our neighbor and fully
understand what God sees in each and every one of us.

A
precious soul.

“ For God sees not as man sees, for man looks
at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” -1 Samuel
16: 7